A Multitude Of MPEG's

Here are some low res videos from our Valentines excursion to Disneyland.
(Click the title to view.)

• Hannah crosses the pontoon bridge at Tom Sawyer Island
• Some smooth jazz on Front Street in New Orleans Square

Valentine's Day You Say?

Yes, we say it's Valentine's Day whenever we say, and we say it's today. At least, Hannah says it's today and I'm happy to agree as she plans to celebrate Valentine's Day in Disneyland this year. Hannah had been telling me to keep Valentine's weekend open for a special getaway for some time now but she hadn't told me why or where we would be going. When an impassable business opportunity arose over the valentine's day weekend Hannah graciously restructured her plans and we took off for our romantic getaway this last weekend in January - ahh the joys of being an annual pass holder! We had a fabulous time after we got used to be being without our baby and relished the fun that can be had in Disneyland by two free wheeling adults.

We dropped the baby off at Grandma and Grandpa's at 7am on Saturday Morning, caught a 9:00 flight and were in the park by 11:00am. We ran about like a house-a-fire till we caught an early evening flight back on Sunday. What a great way to see the park and get out of town for a couple days! I tried to leave a couple audio posts and send a few E-mails for the blog, but between some technical difficuties and the fact that we could move so fast and do so much just the two of us, I didn't get much else accomplished. Soon we'll have some pictures and possibly some video.

A First While Flying Home

This is a Bombardier Canadair Regional Jet 700 owned by Atlantic Southeast Airlines (ASA) parked on the ramp at gate 14 at SNA (Santa Ana/John Wayne Airport.) This was my first trip aboard a CRJ 700. They're wonderful planes to fly on, giving just a little more room to a regional jet above the smaller 50 seat counterpart 200 series. You also ride higher in this jet by design (The main gear must be taller to accomadate the extra length on rotation.) adding to the sense of being in a large plane without loosing the spry sense of manuverability that comes from flying in a regional jet.

Mobile Email

We started our second day at disneyland for our valentines getaway. We'll catch a plane back later tonight. Till then we'rn we'r





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Mobile Email from a Cingular Wireless Customer http://www.cingular.com

So Much For The Music

After dinner at the "French Market" on New Orleans Square in Disneyland. The "Side Street Strutters" came out regale us with thier tunes. By the time I got my phone out and cooperating to make an audio post, thier set was done! Man, I wish I could play sets like that when my band plays a club.

Search... And You Will Find

The last time you were perusing a list of sites returned from a Google Search were you evaluating wich one would offer the best Britney Spears update? Or were you searching for new wallpaper for your desktop? It's likely that you did at least once in 2004 as Google's annual Zeitgeist reports these were among the most popular search terms of the year.

I've wondered more than once if you could determine the current state of affairs in the country by determining what was searched for the most. Well, apparetnly it's possible, and Google does it every year. Check out The 2004 Zeitgeist to see the most popular queries of Americans and then try out The results on a country by country basis.

The Cities of The State and The State of The City

In Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson's State of the City Speech 2005 he stated:

The choices of those who have decided to commute long distances, mostly as they drive one-person-per-automobile, and to foul our air, [and] clog our roads... should not be encouraged and further accommodated... We want our friends from the north to come to Salt Lake City; we just don’t want them to... undermine the quality of our lives... simply because of the choices they make about where they live and how they get around.
From: Salt Lake City Mayors Office web page. http://www.ci.slc.ut.us/mayor/speeches/stateofcity2005.htm (Emphasis added)

I, among many, were dumbfounded by The Mayors comments and took particualr offense as one who's wife commutes as so described to Salt Lake. I follow her to work on many days to eat, and shop where she works. I am now dissinclined to buy anything in Salt Lake City. Today Desert Morning News writter Brady Snyder reports that the very employee's of Salt Lake City fit the description Mayor Anderson enumerates above:

...hundreds of city employees who labor at and around City Hall drive their cars to the office... City records also show that hundreds of those "friends from the north..." actually work for Salt Lake City.
Specifically, 1 in every 10 (or 307) of the city's 2,962 employees live in Davis County but travel into Salt Lake City to do their jobs. An additional 51 come from Weber and Cache counties.
Besides Davis, another 320 city employees come from other counties, like Utah, Tooele and Summit, to work for Salt Lake City taxpayers. Another 656 live in suburban Salt Lake County cities.
More than 1,600 city employees have Salt Lake City addresses. However, human re- sources director Brenda Hancock said many of those don't live within the city's boundaries but rather in unincorporated parts of Salt Lake County.

It appears that Mayor Andersons thinly veiled distain of "his friends to the North" coupled with his well known distain of the Legacy Highway project has led the Mayor to neglect that sage advice "First look within."

Call an ambulance - Fahrenheit 9/11 SHUT OUT!

I was starting the day when the 77th Annual Academy Awards Nominee List was announced. Of course, only the big award nominees were televised, but I was elated to lean that Fahrenheit 9/11 (Michale Moore) was not even noticed. The pundits include the caveat that Moore might have gotten a nod if he had placed it in the "documentary" category. I say "IT'S NOT A DOCUMENTARY!" For once, Moore did something right.

I applaud the members of Acadamy of Motion Picture Arts & Science for rejecting this film. I was not going to even watch the Oscars this year in protest of all the Moore's, Streisands, etc. that tainted the ceremony last year. It looks like I won't need to take that step.

♫ Say My Name ♪

As I was browsing the list of top 100 baby names of 2004 as listed by babycenter.com I was fascinated to note how many of my friends and family's names were on the boys' list. It was even more interesting to notice that only half as many of my friends and family's names ended up on the list of most popular girl's names. I don't know what that means, if anyting, but it's interesting none the less. There was one caveat however: I decided to bolster my brother-in-law's ego and not count "Erin" in the list of most popular names, even though it appeard as number 80 on the girl's list. (We Love You Erin!)

Boys' Names 3. Ethan 8. Joshua 11. Zachary 12. Andrew 14. Jack 19. Alexander /47. Alex 20. Nathan 26. James 27. Daniel 28. Benjamin 76. Brian

Girls' Names 1. Emma 8. Hannah 9. Sarah 51. Paige 69. Audrey 74. Claire